Sunday, 18 April 2010

What a difference a year makes?

Not to rain on everyone's parade, but this year's start puts last year's in perspective:

Runs Scored Runs Allowed2009 54 752010 53 66

The difference in runs allowed would actually only add up to about half a win.

QMAX is a system from the old Big Bad Baseball Annuals of adding some 'granularity' to the Quality Start, showing that some Quality Starts are better than others. 2009:2010:Click on the images to make them bigger. The blue area marks the 'Success Square' outings, where the combination of hits allowed and walks surrendered is good enough to mean you should win half the time. The red zone shows the 'Hit Hard' starts, games one is unlikely to win. There's not a whole lot of difference between this year and last: one fewer hit hard and an elite quality start, and that was Livo!'s of yesterday. That one also probably skewed our runs allowed statistic.

The 2009 edition of the Nationals underperformed badly. The 2010 one has overperformed slightly. You could put it down to Mr Rizzo's choice of 'winners' versus Bowden's 'lollygaggers'. You could put it down to a firmer hand on the tiller than last season, when Mr Acta seemed to be on borrowed time from the autumn, and MLB wouldn't let Mr Rizzo shed the 'interim' tag. You could put it down to luck. I know which one I think. How about you?

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About fra paolo

He was a fan of the Montréal Expos, because they were the closest team to London, England, where he lived from 1982 until 2008. For now he lives in Ontario, from where he keeps an eye on the Detroit Tigers and other baseballing matters.

(The title alludes to St Augustine of Hippo's De Civitate Dei contra Paganos, in case theology isn't on your curriculum vitae.)

Follow me on Twitter @frapaolotweets

QMAX Categories

Elite Square

Success Square

Hit Hard

Uncategorised

Data incomplete

Bullpen Awards

Hero's Palms

Goat's Heads

Hero's Palms and Goat's Heads are awarded on the basis of the change in Win Probability during the pitcher's time on the mound, less any obvious fielding blunders.

LI Win Values (batters)

Data Incomplete.

(This metric, of my own invention, incorprates the Leverage Index, RE24 Base-Out values and the number of runs that are needed for a win to estimate how many wins or losses a hitter has provided to his team. One can think of it as a measure of 'clutch'.)